Unveiling the whys and wherefores of customer helpful behaviours

Abstract

Customers may step out of their expected ‘role behavior’ to engage in ‘citizenship behaviours’. This role- change provides emotional and instrumental benefits to service employees (SEs). Although past research has acknowledged the veracity of this interesting phenomenon, the customers’ motivations and expectations for performing supportive actions that explicitly benefit service personnel remain unclear. This paper investigates both fundamental sources of such customer behaviours.